Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 4:19 PM
To: Steven and Dee Ann Meacham
Subject: Thursday in Haiti
Hello from Haiti,
I can't believe it's already Thursday.
Safety First: After much anticipation they announced the runoff candidates for the presidency. The second and third place finishers will be in the runoff and number 1 it out. Based on polling and popular support it was pretty widely felt that the the first place finisher's vote was rigged and that is what all the protests have been about. The second place finishers are popular with the Haitian people so things are looking up here.
Today we continued on clearing the road route and knocking plaster off the residence. We had some more Haitian helpers and it is something to see them cut down a 12" tree with a machete. They are pretty good at getting them down, but not so good at directional falling so we had some lessons on how to do undercuts and back cuts. I've put the arm on some folks to see if we can't bring back some tools more suitable for the work.
One of the workers put a pick through a water pipe so thee of us from our team and our interpreter got to walk down the market street and try to find a coupling and some other tools. As I said there are vendors all along the street and the stores are more like old fashion bank teller windows than what we are used. We had some success and were able to find what we could make do with, but to know what to ask for you have to know the name of the part in English and Creole, and of course a lot of parts and tool names aren't in the interpreter's vocabulary so they don't know what to call it in Creole. We finally found a store we could actually go in and look at the inventor. Walking down the street is a thrill. If there are sidewalks the vendors are blocking them. They gutters are full of trash and the vehicles are zooming by, so you have to watch out all the time. In spite of everything the people look fit and happy. Of course I'd look a lot more fit if I only had one meal of beans and rice a day also.
This afternoon we visited the children's home. We did crafts and played games with the kids. At the end they sang some songs for us and we thought we'd teach the the Hookie Pookie, but they already knew it. It was a lot of fun and the kids were great.
A team from New York arrived this afternoon and two semi trailer loads of relief supplies arrived at a building at the back of the compound that is being used by another NGO. They had everything from medical buckets and health buckets, like we send to UMCOR all the way to a medical examining table.
Tomorrow we are going to continue of the road and the residence and I am going to look at some project work for the Vashon Island Team when we come on the 22nd.
Check out the blog again for some photos.
There is a line behind me waiting for the computer so so long for now.
Steve
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